A screaming comes across the sky. andHappy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

To which we can now add:

Mickey Cray had been out of work ever since a dead iguana fell from a palm tree and hit him on the head.

from Carl Hiaasen's Chomp. Great book. My thanks to Silverbirch's DB for recommending it. Whenever I need to wallow in South Florida laughing my brain scrambled, I'll reread this. Partially because I enjoy romance as portrayed when it's all verbal, standing up. I find myself cheering for Wahoo and Tuna to find each other again.

It's delightfully cool around here right now; I could live this way forever. I bought four pints of blueberries for the week, which means that I'll just have to snack on them every day in addition to breakfast. I can live with that.

Coming back for a quikie to say hello (I hadn't been here since January, can you believe that?). Not even trying to catch up, so I hope everyone's as alright as possible, considering RL circumstances and various random crap. ^^

Preparing psychologically for next Sunday: huge family meal, with most of said family I haven't seen since Christmas 2006 because they're, well, they're a$$holes. I expect absolutely no comments about my having lost weight and not regained it, but plenty of green-eyed attempts to feed me seconds and thirds through guilt-tripping. What I can I say... lolilol?

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The last clear definite function of men — muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need — this is man.
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath —Color Me Fit

We are on holiday here. I'm catching up with all the stuff I didn't get done due to the dog sit. Bills, filing, all that fun stuff. My garden is calling to me to come and save it from the weeds that threaten to strangle it.

The new house is looking good! All the floors are prepped to get their hardwood covering, the new garden shed is up and has one coat of paint on most of it, the wonky windy basement stairs have been replaced, we have a pass thru to the dining room from the kitchen, and DH and I bought all new bathroom fixtures yesterday.

The HVAC will get done this week, DH is getting quotes for painting, and my garden assistance should start this week.

I still have to buy the bathroom tiles and a shelf for the kitchen so the exhaust hood can be installed but I'm starting to feel that we will end the reno ahead of schedule.

DH has been a trouper in all of this and I thank him every day for all the work and organizing he's doing. He's being a good guy!

I am a happy person.

Good week all!

Dagmar

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Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow" - Mary Ann Radmacher

Dagmar - It sounds like things are really falling into place! How incredibly exciting! I know exactly how it feels when you start to check off what you need to get done when rehabbing a house, so you must be flying high!

I had a good weekend - started off Saturday with a 10K - Killed it time wise (46:49) but couldn't catch the d*mn 21 year old girl in front of me so I came in 2nd for females. 5th place overall in a field of 70+.

I then spent the rest of the weekend getting stuff done - my garden is INSANE this year - not sure if it's the weather or what - but I must have blanched and frozen AT LEAST 20 pounds of yellow beans and sugar snap peas!

Bill, we're both delighted that you enjoyed Chomp. Hoot (about an owl species), Flush and Scat are also brilliant. Chomp came with us on our tour of duty to SO's family, as relief after difficult periods.

We picked a lot of blackcurrants last week (as good as blueberries for their health benefits) and they were immediately processed into jam by the gardener concerned. Ah. Jam and marmalade is stacking up here, one way or another. I think my sister will provide lemon curd soon. Hmmm.

I'm overcaffeinated & won't get to the gym to work off my nervous energy till tonight, half-packed for my trip tomorrow, full of the usual last-minute errands (stopping the mail, etc.), and trying to calm the heck down. I also feel as though I have no memory at all of the weekend having happened.

Jen, you have the heart of a race horse. I feel like a lot of my life is trying to catch up with 21-year-olds. And 35-year-olds. And 40-year-olds.

I can't wait until the upcoming weekend, when this trip will be over. Oh, and yes, of course, we'd have to be on a high alert level against terrorist incidents as I depart from a small NYC-area airport with my anxiety at one of its peaks for the year.

Dagmar, that was me last year at about this time, having just moved into my newly renovated apartment, over which I'd collaborated with the head contractor & architect for the previous winter. The place still smelled like freshly sawed wood. The charm has largely worn off, and I'm about to make another call to the furniture restorer, who's kept my sleigh bed for two years now. I saw a decent sleigh bed at the website of a dealer up in Maine and am wondering if I ought to just issue a do-not-resuscitate order and buy this other one instead. Probably will cost me the same amount of money either way.

Interesting. DH and I have done more bickering (about the renovations to the house) in the last 3 weeks than throughout most of our 17-year long relationship. I suppose any decision is a bit of a power struggle. I'm getting better at letting DH make the decisions on his own but he has to have more confidence. I don't WANT to spend 2 hours discussing the threshold to the kitchen - just pick one and put it in.

He's going to order $5K worth of flooring today. I hope that goes well.

It looks like my body's "comfortable weight" is now 137 lbs. I've survived the house closing, 3 weeks of bickering, and a dog sit at the same weight.

I only weigh on : Mondays. I think the day to day fluctuations were driving me a bit crazy.

It seems like it's almost fall here - that coolness is in the air every morning. I think my part in the house reno - shopping and cleaning - is coming to an end. Or at least things with tight deadlines are almost over.

So now I have to decide whether to try to diet down 5 lbs. to give my body a "maintenance zone" for the winter. I think I'm gonna give it a real shot. It's still warm enough at dinner time to eat salad and I'm finding I WANT fruit at night, instead of ice cream, chips, beer, etc.

Good week all!

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Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow" - Mary Ann Radmacher

Good morning! I'm going back to work on Thursday so you'll probably see me around more often. Hopefully I can start to get a little bit of exercise while I'm at work and start to chip away at the extra 30lbs I'm still carrying. I'm trying to remove the junk from my diet and make it all healthy food, but to be honest sometimes dessert is the only way I can cope with stress & exhaustion. Also, I'm understanding why people eat so much fast food -- I just don't have the time or energy to prepare huge quantities of healthy food and I need to eat a whole lot to keep up milk production for the girls.

Anyway, the girls are doing well. They're going longer between feedings at night, but they're not actually sleeping the whole time in between so DH and I are still pretty exhausted. We'll see how my return to work goes. I tried the schedule I'd written out for it yesterday and ended up going up to bed at 6:30pm and not getting up until 8:30 this morning (minus three feedings and 4-5 times getting up to give them pacifiers). On the plus side, I did manage to be ready for the day at 7am and awake through the time I'd be coming home, so there's that. Their next pediatrician appointment is Monday so we'll see how much they weigh -- I'm guessing in the neighborhood of 9lbs now because they're into the 0-3month size clothes and out of the newborn clothes.

DH is trying to figure out how and when to tell his employer that he's not coming back from his FMLA leave. We're waiting until I'm back at work so that I can talk to HR in person about getting him on my health insurance.

Good luck with your return Jessica! It seems smart that you are trying a dry run out. Does dh's employer have no idea he's not returning?!

Dagmar.... I feel your pain. My family is in turmoil at the moment. We are disagreeing about how to move dd back to Arizona and dh is currently in Texas finalizing our other dd's move there. Money is a large part of the stress for us. It doesn't help that July is the one month of the year that I don't get a paycheck.

I was buying dd's textbooks the other day. We rented the ones we could but we had to buy the Spanish workbook. It was $200! What a ripoff!

I did have a positive $$ experience yesterday. I was looking at the cell phone bill. I realized we had been paying an extra $30 a month for over a year for international text messaging. This was from dd traveling to London last summer! I *thought* I had cancelled. After a very long phone call, a very nice guy credited me $320! Phew!

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2015 workout goals:

250 Bikram yoga classes
100 other workouts
for a total of 350 workouts

Jen, are you seriously disappointed that you couldn't beat a 21 year old!?!! After how far you've come? Kudos to you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shannon in ATL

Jen - I'm laughing at your chasing the 21 year old. Good for you coming in second, great job!

Thanks guys! There is a **SMALL** chance that I have an issue with being overly competetive. I am a VERY poor loser.

Dagmar - I think there is a LAW that absolutely requires men to be complete dicks when it comes to home repair and remodeling - that has been my experience anyway...

Jessica - good luck on going back to work! I can't imagine how exhausted you must be. I hope that the transition goes well! I am wondering if you could get "healthier" options stopping by grocery stores for their pre-made deli stuff versus fast food? Still fast and convenient.

Michele - Found money! Yay! Textbooks are the ultimate ripoff!

As for me, the Judge I work with is throwing a "colossal" party tomorrow where there is sure to be a ton of tempting food. This will be followed by a party at my house on Saturday for my father-in-law's 95th birthday - also a bring a (unhealthy) dish to pass!

My weight has been pretty stable for 2 weeks in a happy zone but methinks it will be tested this week!

Michele - I just saw the post about renting textbooks. I find it amazing that they have gotten so expensive that people rent them now. Wow.

Jessica - good luck going back to work! I love the fact that DH is going to stay at home with the girls. Will he try to work from home any or is he leaving altogether? My cousin is a SAD with three girls at various ages and he loves it.

Jessica Good luck with going back to work. It sounds like you have a good plan in place and doing the dry run was a great idea! Your DH will probably find himself getting a great deal of attention when he starts taking the babies out and about. He's got tiny adorable twins and he's a guy - that's quite a draw.

saef Good luck with the trip.

DH took a night off from house wrecking last night. I think he was very relieved - his whole body hurts. We are catching up on True Blood - I Eric Northman - and last night was quite relaxed.

I am going to a tile store today - my first time. Should be interesting. DH is leaving the whole bathroom reno to me and the contractor.

Good day all!

Dagmar

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Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow" - Mary Ann Radmacher

Michele, I think some of his coworkers suspect he's not coming back but he didn't say anything about it. We wanted to wait until he'd actually been at home with the girls for a while to see if he was going to be okay staying with them or not. I figured if after being home on leave with them he didn't like it then he'd go back to work and we'd find daycare. He seems to be happier being home with them than he ever was at work though, so now we just have to deal with his employer.

Shannon, he plans to stay home full time for at least a couple years. He has some interest in starting his own business (from home) so he might explore that. I told him once he's out and about with the girls he's going to get hit on by single moms.

Jen, thanks for the tip about the groceries! I have been stocking up the fridge with turkey for sandwiches, but DH keeps eating it all.